The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
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ture. I think it’s a wonderful movie. Even now, with some of the monsters,
people say, “Look how silly they look!” But they work for me. I think Jason
is probably a better film, because it’s based on the Greek myths and there’s
a history. But I’ve got to say, there are some terrific moments in Sinbad—
when they go in that cavern, and the way that dragon is chained up. And
that giant crossbow!
How do you think you’d be different if you hadn’t seen that film?
Landis: I don’t know, I really don’t know. I do know that I was very lucky. I
had the advantage, which I now understand, which is I knew what I wanted
to be from the time I was eight. I was able to seek out filmmakers, and I met
everybody. Hitchcock, Capra—everybody. George Stevens, William Wyler,
Billy Wilder—I really wanted to meet these people. But I wanted to meet
them and to know them and to learn from them. That was a big advantage
because most people don’t know what they want to do, even when they are
in college. So I had an advantage.
It’s extremely important to know, and this includes movies now, that how
you appreciate a movie has everything to do with your life experience at the
moment when you see it, how you see it, and where you see it.
People who see 2001 on DVD, on an eighteen-inch TV, letterboxed or
not, that movie is not going to have the impact it did when you saw it in a
Cinerama theater in 70mm. It’s just not, it’s a different experience. So many
of the things in 2001, because of the dating—Pan Am doesn’t exist anymore,
there’s a close-up in the movie of this stewardess’s slippers because there is
Velcro on them. Like in James Bond, where they have a close-up of a digital
watch. That stuff dates, but that space station set to “Blue Danube” is still one
of the most powerful images ever. And it’s just, how old were you when you
saw it? Where were you? How did you see it? Movies are subjective.